Direct questions would just get me the guilt trip: All of a sudden you want to know about the Nolans, you didn’t care what happened to any of us for twenty-two years, rinse and repeat. The way into my ma’s info bank is by the disapproval route. I’d noticed, the night before, that Number 5 was painted a particularly darling shade of baby-pink that had to have caused a conniption or two. “Number Five’s been done up nicely,” I said, to give her something to contradict.

Kevin gave me a startled are-you-mental stare. “Looks like a Teletubby puked on it,” he said, through fried bread.

Ma’s lips vanished. “Yuppies,” she said, like it was a disease. “They’re working in the IT, the pair of them, whatever that means. You won’t believe me: they’ve an au pair. Did you ever hear the like? A young one from Russia or one of them countries, she is; it’d take me the rest of my life to pronounce her name. The child’s only a year old, God love him, and he never sees his mammy or daddy from one weekend till the next. I don’t know what they wanted him for, at all.”

I made shocked noises at the right points. “Where did the Halleys go, and Mrs. Mulligan?”

“The Halleys moved out to Tallaght when the landlord sold the house. I raised five of yous in this flat right here, and I never needed any au pair to do it. I’d bet my life your woman had an epidural, having that child.” Ma smacked another egg into the frying pan.

Da looked up from his sausages. “What year do you think it is?” he asked me. “Mrs. Mulligan died fifteen years back. The woman was eighty-bleeding-nine.”

This diverted Ma off the epidural yuppies; Ma loves deaths. “Come here, guess who else died.” Kevin rolled his eyes.

“Who?” I asked obligingly.

“Mr. Nolan. Never ill a day in his life and then dropped down dead in the middle of Mass, on his way back from the Communion. Massive heart attack. What d’you think of that?”

Nice one, Mr. Nolan: there was my opening. “That’s terrible,” I said. “God rest him. I used to hang around with Julie Nolan, way back when. What happened to her?”

“Sligo,” Ma said, with gloomy satisfaction, like it was Siberia. She scraped the martyr’s share of the fry-up onto her plate and joined us at the table. She was starting to get the bad-hip shuffle. “When the factory moved. She came up for the funeral; she’s a face like an elephant’s arse on her, from doing the sun beds. Where do you go to Mass now, Francis?”

Da snorted. “Here and there,” I said. “What about Mandy Cullen, is she still about? The little dark one, used to fancy Shay?”